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NOTES ON BRITISH TRICHOPTERA. 

 By R. McLachlan, F.L.S. 



Again I am reminded that the time has come for chronicling 

 the result of another season's work among these insects, to 

 which I have of late paid almost exclusive attention ; but so 

 great is the paucity of materials, that I would fain throw 

 down my pen and give up the idea as hopeless, did not such 

 a proceeding argue a despondency in the present, and want 

 of confidence in the future, to which I am by no means in- 

 clined to give way. Still, it is hard to have to say that 

 there is no novelty of this year's capture to record, and that 

 the few additions to our lists are the result of previous years' 

 research or resuscitations. To say that there are no more 

 worlds to conquer would be simply absurd ; I am sanguine 

 enough to believe that our present list contains less than three- 

 fourths of our native species, and that if some response could 

 be found to the cry for more help, we should be able in a 

 year or two to show a very different state of things. The 

 number of Eno;Iish Entomoloo:ists who make this branch of the 

 science their especial study is but two ! and these both resi- 

 dent in the metropolis, the district around which is by no 

 means the best for these insects, far-famed as it may be in other 

 orders— a fame by the way perhaps more due to the number 

 of workers, than to any superiority in the locality itself. In 

 lamenting the want of co-workers, let it by no means be con- 



